Free culture porn for a sex-positive society

This article was written by Alexander "Sasha" Ahimsa on 2010Oct24 and is licenced under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Imagine if sexuality was no longer an issue and the world no longer fought to suppress it. We would have one thing fewer that serves to divide us, turn us against ourselves, further marginalize minorities, and deem some individuals below the rest. There are more critical issues facing humanity that deserve our attention, but how can we tackle those if we’re still fighting for freedom and equality at such a basic level? It’s deep-seated, but if we overcome this single issue, the world will be a happier, healthier place, and through greater understanding, we will be better able to address even bigger problems. This is a future you can fight for, but only if you realize how little resemblance it bears to the present. We’re still fighting for ownership over our own bodies against the tides of people who would deny the autonomy of others. It’s time we truly stood up to the fight.

We need to take a critical look at the norms that remain unnoticed and unquestioned by far too many. Why is it that the movie industry is so tolerant of gratuitous violence yet won’t allow even artful depictions of sex? Why is it that religious groups forcefully promote abstinence, a censorship of sex education which fails to impact the actual rate of sexual abstinence, when this ignorance endangers young people with distorted and inaccurate information about contraceptives? Why is it that there is even any argument about same-sex couples having the same basic civil liberties as everybody else? Why is it that laws supposedly enacted to protect youth are instead criminalizing them en masse for doing what is an expected element of growing up, with punishments far exceeding those for murder, even for consensual acts within the same age range? Why is it that sex workers are criminalized with completely ineffective and ill-conceived laws that only endanger their lives, prevent smart regulation, and keep the issues hidden from view? Why is it that pornography is frowned upon when 40 million, over 1 in 10 US Americans in 2006 admitted to regularly visiting internet porn sites and all that viewership serves to actively reduce sex crimes? Sexual repression hurts society.

Sex, just like its expletive, can fill so many important roles while still making so many people needlessly angry. Sure, whether or not to be open about your sex life is a personal choice but, well, it should be just that. People who decide to be more closed-book about it should have no right to go around closing other peoples’ books, making them lose their page and miss out on all the good that can come of this reading. We become vulnerable to great injustices when a part of a person’s identity, their gender or sexuality, becomes a tool used to marginalize them or mark them as subhuman.

In walks sex-positivism. Being sex-positive is being comfortable with the expression of our own sexualities and accepting of everyone else’s without preconceived notions of what they may be. I’m straight, you’re gay, he’s pansexual, she’s transgender, we’re polyamorous, they’re not, and it’s all okay! Ironically, a sex-positive culture is a culture in which sex is a complete non-issue. Everyone knows Shane in Accounting is gay and about to get married, and that Alex in Marketing doesn’t really date guys, she just screws them. It’s not whispered about any more, no one gets fired over it anymore, no one has to fret about being a slut or coming out of the closet because, as it turns out, it doesn’t matter. If you’re open enough with yourself, sex is just not something that distorts your point of view. Society has a long way to go in that regard.

These sentiments are often misconstrued, so let’s get them straight. We aren’t here to shove sex down your throats and into your churches or children. We’re just here to hand out condoms and abortions and remind you that the S&M club holds its meetings every other Thursday night, you know, if that’s your thing. While respecting sensible boundaries, namely those established by consent, the sex-positive movement opposes any cultural and legal restrictions on sexuality which violate any individual’s autonomy over their own body. Such restrictions infringe upon our rights at a basic level, and in doing so they ultimately enable and promote many of the injustices we see around the world today.

So, if you’re tired—tired of a news report about yet another GLBTQ youth committing suicide or being beaten to death after the concerns of their parents fell on the deaf ears of school administrators, tired of a media which would condemn a teen who killed herself after sexting rather than the school and classmates who shamed and harassed her, tired of a nation which would impeach their president for adultery but not for war crimes, tired of a religion being able to get away with contributing to the spread of HIV/AIDS and poverty in Africa through the prohibition of condoms while sheltering child sexual abusers in their clergy, tired of a global society which fears and longs to control female sexuality—if you’re just plain tired, let’s put an end to it. Let’s fight all of this sex-negativity. Let’s build a creative, diverse, sex-positive culture with direct action by living as if we were in the society we wish to create. Spread openness with openness, and don’t let societal norms and taboos stop you.

In this vein, I have decided to start producing homemade porn and encouraging others to do so as an ongoing sex-positive campaign. This is the first Sex in the Pink campaign of many to come. Why would I do this? Well, why not? This is precisely what it is all about: there should be no reason why doing this should have such negative effects, so despite those potential consequences, or rather because of them, this will be an act of protest. It’ll be fun, I want to do it, and let’s face it, we all watch porn.

People warn that I might regret it, but I don’t want to live my life fearful and submissive of what needs to be stood up against. I might just as easily regret not having videos to look back on later and, most importantly, not having the integrity to stand up for my values. Well what if I am elected to office or running a major company and it ends up in the news? I don’t see those positions any differently: I’m doing this because I want to oppose a society where that would be newsworthy or anything to be frowned upon. It’s just sex, naked bodies sharing a ritual older than humanity itself; in the future they will wonder why we were so bothered by nude images and recreational sex. In the words of Dan Savage, “…everybody’s gonna have dirty pictures online, so it really won’t mean anything. You’re going to be a freak if you don’t have dirty pictures online.” I want to get us there sooner so that sex can no longer be used as a weapon against anyone.

This campaign will be part of a greater project that is already underway to promote all of these ideals and more. Introducing, FreedomPorn.org, the world’s first ever free-as-in-freedom porn site, comprised of entirely free cultural works in free formats, both Ogg Theora and WebM. Freedom Porn (FP) is a participatory resource for ethical smut, promoting our favorite ideals, and running on donations. From the about page:

The mission of Freedom Porn is to empower and engage individuals to create and share ethical porn as a means of advancing sex-positivism and sexual freedom.

We advocate safer sex and consensual sex, and feminism is inseparable from our mission. We also fight for freedom of speech, privacy, and free culture.

Most of the stuff will probably be some basic amateur smut at first, but there are a few extra things that can be achieved with this. We will always spread the messages of Freedom Porn to viewers, for example through video title screens promoting safe and consensual sex. The website is a wiki which makes it a participatory project, and so all we need is to join together in making lots of media for Freedom Porn. Request an account to be able to contribute to the wiki, and apply to be a submitter to post your own pictures, videos, or erotic stories. You can help this effort by making porn, writing informational pages on anything from how to protect your privacy to gender equality, or just by spreading the word. Let’s reach out to everyone who sees the wrongs caused by sex-negativity and point out real solutions, evidence-backed solutions, to the problems society unfairly blames on sex. Anyone who would like to get involved in any capacity should send an email and you will be welcome to do a writeup to introduce yourself, explain your motivations, and make an appeal to others, all to be featured here on the Sex in the Pink blog.

Consider this a call to arms in the battle for universal sexual autonomy. We act against the widespread, unjust, and harmful oppression of human sexuality. We speak out to refute false claims attributing pornography to rampant sexual exploitation, human trafficking, dehumanization, desensitization, moral decline, and pedophilia. We stand in resistance to any who propagate this misinformation seeking dominion over the sexuality of others under the guises of “feminism”, religious good, social order, and of course, protecting the children. Our bodies will only be self-empowering, and our sexuality will not be a means to subjugate us.